Saturday, April 16, 2005

Crooked Timber has an excellent "Friday fun" post about bad scenes in great movies and great scenes in bad movies. The whole thing is worth reading, including all the comments. My own contribution will have to wait. It's a major challenge for me to recall scenes I liked or disliked, figure out whether the film qualifies as great or bad, and then, hardest of all, remember the names of the films. I'm full of admiration mixed with a heap of envy for those who can reel this stuff off without giving a moment's thought. Anyway, here's one of my favorite contributions among the comments:

In 976-EVIL 2 (not the original, mind you, but the sequel) there is one scene that stands out so far from the rest of the movie that I can hardly believe there was only one director involved.

In the middle of this cheesy horror movie that I saw on cable late one night, the heroine and her best friend are sitting on the couch watching TV. The heroine wants to watch It’s a Wonderful Life; the best friend, who’s a little bit more naughty, wants to watch Night of the Living Dead. The two of them have a friendly tug-of-war over the remote control, zapping back and forth between the two black and white classics. Finally, the best friend gives in, and the heroine goes off to the kitchen for more popcorn when the Capra movie cuts to a commercial.The commerical, it turns out, features the demonically-posessed college dean (don’t ask). He says he’s selling a special remote control that “puts YOU in the action.” So he zaps it at the best friend, and now she’s in the last scene of It’s a Wonderful Life. And she is—she’s standing in the back of the Bailey’s home, everyone’s singing “Auld Lang Syne,” the cop and the cab driver are dumping out a basketful of cash, and somewhere a bell is ringing. Little Zuzu tells her daddy, “Teacher says, ‘every time you hear a bell [now baritone] A ZOMBIE TAKES A SOUL TO HELL.”

“That’s right, precious, that’s right.” says George, deeply moved.

And now we cut away from the original It’s a Wonderful Life footage, to a point of view shot from the BF’s perspective. It’s still black and white, and all the people from the Capra movie are there—there’s still snow on Bert the cop’s shoulders. And they turn around and now they’re all zombies.

Of course the girl backs up to the door, and then hands start breaking through the door grabbing at her … then the mob of zombies coming at her parts. It’s little Zuzu. And she’s carrying a spade.

I didn’t just dream this. I tracked down this movie at a video store so I could watch this one scene again. Completely different from every other cheesy moment of this movie.Posted by Brian Zimmerman · April 15th, 2005 at 11:49 pm